


coulda, shoulda, woulda

by LilyEllison



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Post-Season/Series 03, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24556039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyEllison/pseuds/LilyEllison
Summary: Prompt fromLadyMaigrey: "Matt asking Karen out for the first date post-S3. It could have gone like this / Itshouldhave gone like this / But it actually happened like this."
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Karen Page
Comments: 59
Kudos: 46





	1. It could have gone like this…

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to LadyMaigrey for this excellent prompt! I think the point of it is to have one situation with three different endings, but I'm not that clever, so I just wrote three different takes and lightly linked them. Hope that's OK! (And I'm sorry this is such a fluff bomb!)
> 
> Many thanks to irelandhoneybee for cheerleading and tending to my anxiety. ❤️

It all started when Karen put the coffee in front of him.

“What’s this for?” Matt asked, sitting up a bit straighter in his chair as she leaned over him to put the cup on his desk. “It smells amazing.” Or maybe that was the tantalizing waterfall of her hair brushing his arm.

“Just sharing the wealth,” she said, straightening back up. “There’s a new place down my way on Tenth.” Karen cleared her throat softly. “And no offense, but you look like you could use it.”

“Ouch.”

She laughed. “Not _that_ bad. Just a little extra tired. Long night?”

He wet his lips. Right now would be around the time he usually gave a non-answer. But he was trying not to do that so much anymore. “I think it’s the weather. The criminals are heating up right along with the city — muggings, robberies, you name it.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Not anything more than you're already doing.”

“Well, hang in there,” she said, resting her hand on his shoulder and giving him a little squeeze. And, dammit, she was right on target — a particularly tense spot — and he couldn’t help the moaning sound that came out of his mouth.

Her breath caught. “You OK?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said quickly. “I’m fine.”

“Would it help if I—?” She was already moving behind him, kneading her thumbs into the stiff muscles where his neck met his shoulders.

“Oh no, you don’t hav—” But his protests faded into breath at the sensation spreading through him. God, that felt good. His head dipped forward as she rubbed slow circles over him.

“Pressure OK?” she asked, her voice thready.

“Mmmhmm,” he sighed, not quite able to make words. He relaxed under her touch, letting her fingers work magic on him. It was so easy to let everything else fall away, to focus on the light skipping of her heartbeat and the heavy heat of her breathing.

It wasn’t a secret — at least not from him: She was as into this as he was.

For months now, they’d been moving closer, inch by painstaking inch, but the boundary line between friendship and romance still seemed uncrossable. Sometimes Matt thought he should just ask her out, but guilt and shame and regret always weighed down his tongue.

And there was something about asking her on a date, like they could put time back in the bottle, that felt wrong somehow. He didn’t really _want_ to date Karen. He didn’t need to. Dates, the formal kind, like they had before, were for people who weren’t sure they wanted to be together. They were kind of like job interviews. And what he had in mind with Karen was something more akin to a corporate merger. A shared life.

But the thought of actually trying for that future terrified him. He was supposed to be moving beyond his fears, but none of that philosophical stuff seemed to matter when it came to Karen. If he screwed things up with her again, it would be—he didn’t even want to imagine it.

So he was waiting. If she said something, if she made a move, then he would reciprocate. Except that didn’t quite seem fair either, putting the burden on her. He was stuck.

Karen’s fingers dug in harder then, and Matt realized the weight of his thoughts had made him tense up. No more thinking. He was not going to miss out on this moment, whatever it meant.

The added pressure was good— _really_ good, actually—and another noise escaped his throat when her thumb worked over a knot.

Karen inhaled sharply at the sound, then bit her lip, and damn that made him think way too much about her teeth and her tongue and the silky warmth of her mouth. Everything around them felt suspended — the minutes slowing down and pulling apart like taffy. The buzz of her touch was radiating from his scalp to his toes and if she didn’t stop soon, he was going to have an embarrassing problem for a morning in the office.

“Karen,” he said, almost a groan, and he brought his hands up over his shoulders to cover hers. He only meant to stop her, but the touch of skin on skin was electric. They froze, locked together.

And then Matt heard Foggy whistling down the hallway, and the spell was broken.

“Ah, thanks,” he said awkwardly, pulling away, and Karen made it over to her desk by the time Foggy opened the door.

“Hey, pals,” Foggy said, “what’s poppin’?”

Matt scooted his chair defensively under his desk and pretended to be very, very busy.

He pretended well enough that eventually he really did put the morning’s...distractions...out of his head. He was still typing away when Karen came back to the office after being out on a case for most of the day. Foggy was long gone. Karen didn’t interrupt Matt’s work, just packed up her things to go. But he couldn’t just let her leave. He had to say _something_.

He pulled out his earpiece as she passed his desk. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she answered, a little breathlessly.

“I wanted to say thanks...for earlier,” he said. “I’ll have to return the favor sometime.”

“Sure.” She swallowed as her pulse accelerated. “But can I choose something better than a backrub?”

The broad wink in her tone left him speechless.

“Goodnight, Matt,” she said and flounced out of the office before he could choke out a response.

Jesus.

He knew a come-on when he heard one, having been on the receiving end of many over the years, but what the hell was he supposed to do with this one?

Did she really want—? Or was she just—? And how could he be certain?

It stayed on his mind all night — through an unmemorable dinner, through part of a podcast, through several rounds with the neighborhood’s thugs. They all went down more easily tonight. Maybe because he was more motivated.

Maybe because he knew where his feet would be carrying him when his work was done — or as done as it ever was.

He was just going to check in, he told himself. Make sure she was OK. He wasn’t going to bother her. She would definitely be sleeping.

Except she definitely wasn’t.

He knew he should turn around and go home. This was crazy. She was going to be totally creeped out.

But he was already tapping lightly on her window. She opened it right away. “I can’t believe it,” she said softly. “You’re here.”

“I probably shouldn’t be,” he said, the usual guilt and shame and regret flooding through him. “I’m sorry.” 

“You know, Matt,” she said, “that gets really old.” And she reached out and tugged him through the window by his shirt. He went without complaint.

He barely had his boots on the floor before her hands were cupping his face and she was kissing him like she meant business.

“Should I—” he gasped out when they broke apart to breathe. “Should I ask you to dinner?”

“Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow?” she asked, kissing him again. “At breakfast.”


	2. It should have gone like this…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Should" is so uncomfortably weighty. This is just an attempt at cheesy cuteness, that's all.

It all started when Matt put the coffee in front of her.

“What’s this for?” Karen asked, looking up at him from across her desk. The sun caught on the rims of his glasses and highlighted the tender curve of his lips as he bent slightly over with the cup.

He shrugged as he straightened up. “There’s a new coffee shop down my way on Tenth. Their dark roast smelled even better than the stuff you loved at that place in the Village.”

Karen’s forehead crinkled. “We went to that place like two months ago. I can’t believe you even remember that.” She took a sip excitedly, fully trusting Matt’s senses to ferret out the very best of everything in the city. She wasn’t disappointed. “Oh, wow, that _is_ better. Thank you.”

He just smiled at her, the most perfect, crinkly, dimpley smile, and that was that.

Until the next morning. When Karen got to the office, a cup of the highly delicious coffee was waiting on her desk, next to a freshly sharpened pencil — one that carried the name of the tiny boutique on the Lower East Side that she’d exclaimed over a month ago, when they were in the neighborhood for meetings. One of those quirky only-in-New-York places, it was devoted almost entirely to pencils.

Matt was working at his desk, seemingly oblivious to her arrival.

“Hey, Matt. Did you, uh, get me a pencil?” she asked, grinning.

“Yours seemed scratchy,” he said nonchalantly.

Maybe it was for the benefit of his own ears, then. But there was a bit of color creeping up his neck that made her doubt it. Especially because she generally only used a pencil when scribbling notes in the field, not at her desk.

“Thank you,” she said.

He just smiled his crinkly smile, and suddenly she was blushing, too.

On the third day, she found a cup of coffee and a hardback copy of a thriller she was eager to read. She’d been on the library’s hold list forever — something she’d offhandedly mentioned in the office a couple of weeks ago. She gasped happily.

“You got me _The Devil’s Name_?” she called out.

“Is that the right one?” Matt asked. “Foggy was buying some books and I thought I remembered the title, so I asked for it.”

“It’s definitely the book I’ve been wanting to read, but you didn’t have to get it.”

“I was already at the bookstore,” he said.

“Yeah,” Foggy piped up. “He was totally accompanying me to the bookstore on my own unrelated personal errand.”

“Exactly,” Matt said, as if that had sounded in any way convincing, and he aimed his usual smile in her direction. Karen bit her lip as a little thrill zipped down her spine. Something was definitely up with Matt. 

It felt very much like he was working his way up to something. Something _romantic_.

And it felt very much like she wanted him to. 

Karen hadn’t been sure before now — or maybe she just hadn’t been willing to admit it. The scars of the past had barely faded, and the three of them had gotten some new bumps and bruises in the last couple of months as they figured out how to truly be a team again. But at long last, Karen thought they were in a good place now. Professionally. Personally. 

And if Matt wanted to...reignite things, then well, her every impulse told her that she was ready, willing and able to catch fire.

The next day, Karen practically raced to work, a sparkle of excitement chasing her steps, as she wondered what she would find on her desk this time.

But she was too early — she unlocked an empty office. And when Matt strolled through the door later, all he put in front of her was a cup of coffee.

That was still sweet, of course. Yes, of course, it was very, very sweet. But she couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed. No, no, no, she told herself, she was _relieved_. It was silly to think Matt meant anything by his little presents. He was just being nice. They were friends. Sometimes coffee was just...coffee. And now everything could stay as it was. That was better.

She thanked him, and offered to reimburse him for four days’ worth of dark roast, and when that didn’t work, Karen tried to put her lingering definitely-not-disappointment out of her mind. Luckily, her cases cooperated on that score, and she spent most of the day away from her desk, tracking down leads.

So it was a surprise when she got back to the office and found something waiting for her. It was a golden Friday evening in Hell’s Kitchen, with the forecast promising a beautiful weekend, and Matt and Foggy had already cleared out for the night. They were probably having a drink at Josie’s. 

That meant there was no one there to notice when she picked up the single red tulip from her desk and touched its silky petals to her lips.

Karen thought about dropping by Josie’s. She thought about calling Matt. She checked her messages several times for any word from him. But in the end, she just went home. She had spent so much of the day convincing herself that she and Matt were better off as friends that her head was spinning.

At home, she opened a bottle of wine, and ate some leftover takeout, and fell asleep on the couch, with her work laptop glowing on the coffee table in front of her. When the sunlight woke her, she felt stiff from her cramped position and blue from her mixed-up emotional hangover. And when she remembered there was no cup of that magically delicious dark roast in her immediate future, not unless she got up and actually left the apartment, the morning seemed even more bleak.

And then there was a knock on her door.

It was Matt, of course — she’d known right away it would be. He looked bashful and gorgeous as he balanced a cup of coffee, a paper bag and his cane in his hands.

“I figured if I was getting you addicted to this stuff, it was only fair to continue delivery on weekends,” he said. “A neighbor let me in downstairs.”

“Oh, wow,” she said awkwardly. “Uh, hi.” She accepted the bag and the cup he was holding out to her and took a sip of the coffee, grateful both for the caffeine and for something to do other than stare at him stupidly. “Thank you. This is so...”

“There’s, um, a muffin in the bag. Blueberry. Also, I was...hoping we could talk.”

“I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet,” she said, a little dumbfounded.

Matt smiled. “It doesn’t matter. Not to me, anyway.”

She let her gaze linger on his face, her senses swirling with anticipation, and then she moved wordlessly to head deeper into the apartment. Matt closed the door behind him and followed.

Karen put the things she was holding on the kitchen table with nervous hands and turned back around to face him, her heart in her throat. “What—what did you want to talk about?” she managed to say.

“Karen, listen. I know—I know I don’t deserve another chance with you, but I’m here to ask you for one anyway.” She tried to keep her breathing steady, unable to quite believe what she was hearing. She watched as Matt reached up and pulled his glasses off, his face a picture of intensity. He set the glasses on the end table next to the couch, along with his folded-up cane, and took a few steps toward her.

“I thought I could take this slow,” he said softly. “I tried. But this morning, I just...I couldn’t wait anymore. I had to tell you how I feel about you.” He took one step closer. “I thought I knew, before. It was simple — you’re someone I love. But now—now I know that it’s so much deeper than that. You’re part of me in a way I can’t begin to put into words. Ever since we met, your compassion, your courage — you’ve inspired me. You’ve given me the strength to keep going so many times. And if there’s any chance that you would—that we could...”

“Matt,” she breathed, her eyes wet.

“You don’t have to give me an answer right away,” he said. “But I wanted to tell you. I’ve been talking to Father Rivera, the new priest at my church. He said that it was clear how much you valued the truth, and it made me realize... We’ve talked about why I made the choices I made over the last year, but I’ve never actually told you how I feel.”

“You talked to your priest about me?” Karen couldn’t help asking.

Matt smiled and breathed out. “He’s a certified counselor, actually.” His face grew serious again. “I’m trying to be better. For myself, and for you. I think I can be, this time. I know it’s probably hard to trust me, but—”

She had closed the last bit of distance between them as he spoke. She wrapped her arms around him, carefully and deliberately, and she pressed her face into his neck. There was so much she wanted to say, but she was too choked up to form the words, and all she wanted in the world right now was for Matt to hold her close.

She wasn’t disappointed. His arms closed around her, pulling her tight against him, and he rubbed his cheek against her hair. They swayed and clung to each other, and she dampened his skin with her tears, a few happy drops that had to escape.

Finally, she cleared her throat. “This is a yes, in case that’s not clear,” she murmured, her voice thick. “I want to try again.”

“So you’ll have dinner with me tonight?”

“Not if that means you’d go away now,” she answered simply, pulling back to look at his face. “Stay here. I’ve got some coffee and a muffin we can share.”

He just smiled at her, the most perfect, crinkly, dimpley smile, and that was that.


	3. But it actually happened like this…

It all started when Karen put the whiskey in front of him.

“What’s this for?” Foggy asked, looking up at her with wary eyes. He was already holding a sweaty bottle of beer that he’d ordered while he was waiting for her to arrive.

“I think you might need it,” she said, sitting down across from him at the table. She took a swig of her own drink to fortify herself. She’d asked Foggy to meet her here — at the bar he used to visit during the days when Josie’s was too full of memories to be borne. _You know_ , she’d said with a hollow laugh, _the one where Matt stole your wallet_.

The one where she knew Matt would never voluntarily show his face.

Karen took a deep breath and tried her best to hide the tremble in it.

“Karen, what’s going on?” Foggy asked.

“I’m sorry.” She pressed her lips together. “But it—it just isn’t working out.”

“What?”

“I’m leaving, Foggy. I’m leaving Nelson, Murdock and Page.”

“No.” Foggy shook his head, his brow creasing deeply. “Is it money? I’m sure we could figure something—”

“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s...Ellison has been offering me my job back for months now. And I finally decided to take him up on it.”

“But _why_?”

“I always loved being a reporter. I thought it was what I was meant to do.” She tried to hold back a sniffle. “Maybe I was right.”

“Then why are you about to cry?” Foggy looked at her closely. “And why are you telling me alone?”

“It’s too hard,” she said in a tiny voice. She bit her lip. “I just need some space from Matt. To get over it."

Foggy sighed. “Have you talked to him?”

“Not yet. I knew if I told the two of you together, you’d spin my head around on this, and I—I have to do what’s best for me. I need you to back me up.”

“I’ll always back you up, K,” Foggy said seriously. “But what I meant was, have you told him how you feel?”

Karen shook her head. “I can’t do it again. I can’t throw myself at him and get rejected all over again. If he wanted…” She took another bracing swallow and tried to smile. “Anyway, it’s not like this is goodbye. We’ll still be friends. We’ll hang out. Just not all day every day.”

“But—”

“The firm is doing really well.” She pushed her hair behind her ears. “You guys can hire another investigator.”

“I don’t care about that right now,” Foggy said. “I just want you to be OK.”

“That’s why I’m doing this.” She tilted back the last of her whiskey, a long, slow burn down her throat, and when she was done, Foggy was standing at her elbow. He leaned over and hugged her tight as she fought off her tears.

The worst thing was — this was the easy part. Now she had to figure out how to tell Matt.

She had definitely not imagined an ending like this a year ago, when Foggy linked their names together in ink on a napkin and they started making plans. By then, she’d already forgiven Matt, more or less — forgiven him at the sight of those scissors sunk deep in his chest, at the feel of his unconscious weight in her arms, at the smell of his skin in close confines of stone, at the sound of that stuttered “Karen, please be careful,” at the taste of his whisky neat on her tongue.

But she still thought then that she didn’t really know him. She’d braced herself for being around him again every day, knowing what she finally knew, knowing that he wasn’t the man she had fallen in love with way back when.

But the joke was on her. Because Matt was still _exactly_ the guy she had fallen in love with. She hadn’t known his secrets before, but she’d known he had secrets. She’d known he got involved in heavy stuff — she never questioned why he would be encountering “the bottom of humanity,” after all. He’d told her with his own words that he’d been trained to push people away to be effective, and she’d seen that play out over and over again.

The pieces were all still the same. Knowing he was Daredevil, knowing about his senses, only made them fit together more easily — as if she’d finally been given the picture on the front of the box to guide her.

And Matt was making an effort to be less secretive, which had been her biggest complaint about him, back in the day. Well, that and his protectiveness. He wasn’t any less protective, or less frustrating, or less prone to doing stupid, self-sacrificing things, but that was the Matt she knew.

So...well, if Matt was still the guy she’d fallen in love with — exactly that same guy — then what defenses did she have against falling in love with him all over again? The answer was that she had none. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

She reminded herself over and over that he’d hurt her. But her heart didn’t care. It just went on loving him, in the same way that, deep down, it always had. That it always would.

But she couldn’t handle it anymore. She couldn’t look at him and ache all day long. She had no hope that things between them would change. There had been moments, scattered sparks here and there when she thought that maybe...but he was focused on his day job, and his night job, and in things that were bigger than the problems of two little people. And she was too. They would both always get caught up in some crusade, some quest for justice, and maybe Matt had decided that it was better to do that without the complications that romance could bring.

Or maybe he’d just never felt the same way at all. Maybe his feelings for her had never gone beyond friendship, and he’d just been fooling himself, or lonely.

But really, the reason she wasn’t with Matt didn’t matter. What did matter was that she was around him too much for sanity. She needed more distance, at least for a while. She needed them to be the kind of friends who caught up over lunch or a happy hour, not the kind of friends who relied on each other for everything.

Karen made Foggy promise to leave the office early the next day, and then she ticked off the dreadful hours one by one, through another mostly sleepless night, through another long day crisscrossing Hell’s Kitchen for her cases, until there was nothing left to do but go back to NM&P and finally face Matt.

“Hey,” she said when she entered the office. Matt tilted his head up and smiled. He wasn’t wearing his glasses — he tended not to wear them as much when there weren’t any clients around. Karen’s fingertips glowed with the urge to trace the lines and curves of his face. Instead, she smoothed her hands over her sides. “Can we talk?”

“What is it?” he asked in a quiet voice, his body tensing up.

She pulled her chair over and sat across from him. “I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I’m going back to the Bulletin. Ellison offered me my old job back.”

“Oh.” Matt’s face was blank.

“I’m sorry. It’s just—”

“No, it’s OK,” he said quickly. “You have to do what’s best for you.”

“Matt, I—”

He stood up suddenly. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I need to—I have to go. I’m supposed to...”

“Oh,” Karen said, half getting up from her chair. “OK. Bye, I guess?”

Matt nodded as he grabbed his briefcase and cane and shuffled out the door as quickly as possible.

Karen sat back down in her chair, stunned. She stared for several minutes at Matt’s glasses with their red lenses, which he’d left lying on a stack of papers. Then she got up, stiffly, like she’d turned into her own grandmother, and she walked slowly home. Inside her apartment, she turned on some music. Something loud and pounding — it didn’t matter what it was. She climbed into the shower and let the water run over her. And then, when she was sure she was somewhere he wouldn’t be able to hear her, she finally cried.

* * *

Matt braced himself before opening the door to Nelson, Murdock and soon-to-be not-Page in the morning. He hadn’t been able to find his glasses at home, which meant they were probably still sitting on his desk, which meant he’d have to run the gauntlet of Foggy’s disapproval before he could reach them and cover up some of the mess.

And boy was he a mess. There was a hot bruise lighting up his cheekbone and his head ached dully. He’d spent most of the night on the streets, kicking the shit out of pretty much anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path, and then he’d guzzled scotch like it was Gatorade until he could sleep. Mess barely covered it.

“Jesus,” Foggy said when he saw him, right on cue. “You look like shit.”

Matt let out a breath that was almost a laugh. He felt like shit, he looked like shit, ergo he was shit.

“You sure you don’t want to take a sick day?”

“I can’t. Too much to do.” Matt plopped down heavily at his desk and slipped his glasses on. “Better?” he asked.

“Not really,” Foggy said.

Matt just grunted in response, going through the motions of starting his workday. His muscles were coiled with tension, and the leftover alcohol and more recent caffeine at war in his system were screwing with his senses. He kept thinking he heard the steady click of her footsteps on the sidewalk outside. That was the real reason he couldn’t call in sick, of course, no matter the abuse he’d heaped upon himself overnight — his days with her were numbered.

Karen was leaving him.

He’d feared all along that this would happen. That one day, Karen would come to her senses and realize that all of the heartache he’d put her through wasn’t worth it. He’d certainly tried hard enough to push her away. He’d lied to her, he’d let her think he was dead, he’d hacked over and over into that cord that connected them, and now it was snapping in two.

He deserved it. He was shit.

Matt pretended to work for an hour, tilting his head to listen for her every few minutes, before he finally asked, “Where’s Karen?”

“She actually is taking a sick day.”

“Oh.” Matt’s head spun.

“Did you—have you talked to her?”

“Yeah.”

“So you know she’s leaving?”

“Yeah. She told me,” Matt said tersely.

When he didn’t say anything else, Foggy made a grumpy sound and turned back to his work. Another 30 minutes passed, with Foggy’s skin flushing and his fists clenching at intervals, until he very quietly erupted.

“God, Matt,” he said, his voice full of disappointment. “You’re really not doing anything to stop her?”

“What could I do?” Matt shook his head dejectedly. “If this is what she wants…”

“I’m just going to level with you, OK?” Foggy stood up and crossed the room to Matt’s desk. “I don’t think you’re ever going to find someone better for you than Karen. I mean, if you just don’t feel that way about her, I guess I understand. But it really sucks.”

“What?” Matt breathed.

“I was hoping that when Karen told you she’s leaving, you’d tell her she was wrong.”

“Wrong to go back to the Bulletin?”

“No, she’s only going back to the Bulletin because—” Foggy cut himself off.

Matt’s heart started jackhammering so loud, it muffled everything else around him. “Why? Why is she going back to the Bulletin?”

“You really don’t know?” Foggy put his head in his hand. “Did you even ask her? Or did you go straight to ‘Karen is abandoning me’?”

“Foggy,” Matt said urgently. He stood up and maneuvered around his desk, putting his hands on Foggy’s arms. “You—you have to tell me.”

“I don’t know if I—”

Matt squeezed Foggy’s arms tighter and moved in closer, so they were practically nose to nose. “Tell me,” he said, sounding way too much like the Devil.

Foggy jerked away, agitated, and Matt released him. He was going too far. “Sorry,” he said. “Please?”

Foggy took a deep breath. “She’s in love with you, Matt. And she thinks you don’t feel the same way. She’s leaving so she can get some space and figure out how to get over you.”

The words slammed into Matt like a city bus going three times the speed limit. He was honestly surprised to still be standing upright when Foggy was finished talking. There was only one thing blaring over and over in his brain.

“I have to go.”

He walked as fast as he could in the direction of Karen’s apartment, wishing he’d left his glasses and cane behind so he could move more quickly without attracting the attention of half of Hell’s Kitchen. But by the time he got to her block, he didn’t care anymore — he was practically running.

Instead of going up the steps to the main door, he ducked into the alley behind her building. It seemed too slow to wait for her to buzz him in, and what if he couldn’t make her understand through the tinny speaker? He needed to get to her. He needed her to _know_.

He tossed the cane aside and jumped up to grab the fire escape, flipping himself onto it quickly. He was in too much of a rush — and, frankly, too far off his game — to be perfectly quiet, and as he got closer to her window, he heard it scrape upward.

“Matt! What the hell are you doing?” Karen exclaimed in a whispered hiss. “Someone's going to see you!”

He made one last jump and flip around, landing right in front of her. “I don’t care.”

“At least—get inside,” she said, and he climbed through the window, a grin spreading over his face.

But it dimmed as the strong scent of her tears enveloped him. She’d been crying. He made Karen cry. Again.

“What’s going on?” she was saying as he reached out and curled his hand around hers.

“Please don’t get over me,” he said.

“What?” she gasped.

“I talked to Foggy,” he said. “I didn’t know that you... I mean, I hoped. But I didn’t think I deserved another chance, and I was...I was too afraid to try. Then you told me you were leaving, and I…” He swallowed hard. “I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was being torn in two. Karen, you’re all I want. You’re all—you’re all I dream about.”

Karen drifted closer. “You really mean it?” she asked softly.

“I…” He lifted his hand to her chin and cupped it gently, letting his thumb trace the curve of her lower lip. Then he leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers, stealing slow, sweet, nuzzling kisses that lasted until their smiles were too wide to manage any more. “I really mean it,” he whispered into her ear, feeling her shiver and holding her tight.

“Can you stay?” she asked.

He smiled. “I’ll call Foggy and tell him I’m taking a sick day after all.”

They spent the rest of the day talking and touching, and touching and not talking, and the evening found them curled up together on Karen’s couch. “Say you’ll have dinner with me and I’ll stay in tonight,” Matt said in a lazy, coaxing way, playing with a strand of her hair.

Karen sighed contentedly, turning her head to kiss him and then snuggling against his chest. “It’s a date,” she said.


End file.
